


Yet The Fire Still Burns

by SC182



Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: Angst, Characters of color, Episode Related, F/M, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Mentions of Character Death, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 14:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SC182/pseuds/SC182
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She sees him in the flames. </p>
<p>Missing scene fic for 3.09.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yet The Fire Still Burns

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters herein. 
> 
> **A/N:** Spoilers for episodes 3.08 and 3.09 and really all previous episodes. Borrowed lots of dialogue as Spartacus as a series loves its call backs, they were very appropriate here. Also, first time dabbling in the Spartacus fandom, so, yay!
> 
> Written for prompt 034. Fire.

It is a small fire that she now watches. So small when compared to the pyre whose smoky remnants still vine and snake upwards, supplicating the gods with their ghostly fingers. Yet, its spirit holds her enchanted despite its size, and, in its depths, she sees a thousand memorizes set ablaze by the sword that took Crixus’s life.

It is as if the gods dulled her senses then, making her all but blind in those long tortuous moments before Crixus is forever parted from her. She recalls no sounds--not the rasp of her haggard breaths or the swing of the blade--nothing exists beyond him. Even then, crouched in dirt and blood, she doesn’t feel helpless but furious and hopeful. Her anger swells at the thought of her man knelling before dogs masquerading as men. Her honorable man—a true god made flesh—is forced to bend his knee in dirt soaked with blood and piss from those of their number who had cowered before him to meet a swift and glorious end.

Crixus’s end is not glorious.

It is not the death he deserves.

She watches the flame dance as her fingers wind the cords of Crixus’s necklace through the gaps between her fingers. It is a thing she has done many nights when they lay in each other’s arms. Her fingers slowly toy with the leather strips and protective emblems hanging about his neck while his heavy fingers respond to each ticklish curl with a soft stroke over her palm; always as firm as a whisper, like each touch is a secret that only they should keep.

Naevia’s lush lips part and rise at the corners, consumed by the memory of his touch. The sting she feels is not from the absence of warm and loving hands but from the slash upon her cheek which reopens an old painful wound.  No tears are shed as she has no more. Like so many things in her life, Rome has stolen them from her; instead she continues her vigil and smiles into the firelight.  

She startles like a horse set upon unstable ground when weight settles on her shoulders and instinctively grabs for the sword on her hip.

"Apologies," a soft voice says above her shoulder.

_Nasir_ , she recognizes instantly. Surely, he should be with Agron and not among those scattered about the open air of the camp.

Her surprise shows on her face, as he says, with a gentle smile, "Agron has taken to slumber and I would see to dearest friend."

"Gratitude." Naevia replies, knowing that had Crixus been returned to her arms, she would not part from him for the company of any other in this world. She pulls the blanket placed on her shoulders tighter, finally taking notice of the chill in the night’s air, and looks away with latent shame blooming in her eyes.

Nasir folds down to the ground beside her. "None needed."

They sit quietly together as the sounds of the camp fade to a calm lull. The measure of quiet strikes her as oppositional to the booming roar of reverence and farewell to Crixus and the memories of all fallen brothers and sisters— _Sura, Varro, Mira, Oenomaus, Donar, Rhaskos, Duro, Acer, Barca, Nemestes, Liscus, Diotimos, Crixus_ —all delivered to the afterlife as champions of a cause greater than themselves. The voices rise to the heavens, entreating the gods see those closest to heart to a measure of deserved peace, and she asks that others not be forgotten— _Diona, Pietros, Camila, Aurelia, Melitta, Totus, Brictius, Verenda_ —all pillars supporting the corridors of time’s passing on her journey from slave to freedwoman.

Her smile has gone now, melted away from her features as she recalls when she and Nasir stood equal once again. Equal in grief. Equal in skill. Equal in desire to see Roman blood upon the sands that made their hearts champions. Hours prior, she and Nasir are truly brother and sister of twin wounded souls and diminished hope; until comes Spartacus up the path teeming with so many, a veritable army in and of themselves, with Agron heavy upon his shoulder.

In that moment, she believes him to be a spirit, a shade of the ferocious yet funny German that she’s come to call brother as much as Nasir. But Nasir’s touch tells that this shadow of the man is real indeed, and her hope—stifled and bitter—ignites and flares and she prays.  Naevia prays to gods, who have never truly listened or cared and have made merry of her misfortunes, for Crixus to be in her arms again.

So she waits with Castus.

Then she waits alone.

She waits until there are no more and Spartacus comes to her with a gentle hand on her shoulder, then he asks, “Shall we begin?” Like Crixus has and Naevia nods, because she can wait no more; her hope once again snuffed to withering vapors.

Nasir sweeps his eyes about the scattered fires and distant tents, before turning to stare in the fire. “Is this the feeling,” he pauses, now staring at her, “that claimed you when reunited in the mines?”

To think one’s beloved lost and doomed to be forever from grasp until they are suddenly alive and then to realize that life too has been returned to those once thought living is how she felt.  It is how Nasir feels now.

“Yes, it is a rendering of sense but a swelling of heart and spirit that can never be matched. It is...” Naevia contemplates quietly as the flames and memories of Crixus calling for fire to rain down on thousands still her, leave her transfixed. “Everything,” she finishes, softly. “It is _everything_.” Incapable of being remade like the sun and stars.

Nasir lowers his staff to the dirt before bringing his knees into his chest. He too watches the flames and she wonders what he sees in its raging belly. “I had prayed to the gods that should Agron not return that his end be quick. That the blood spilled begin to honor his memory and lift heart in the days to come.”

Naevia turns to watch the storm of emotion battle over his features. She only finds one—disbelief.

“The gods do listen and show favor when they see reason.” Not to her prayers when pleads furiously to them over and over after the sword pierces Crixus’s back. “And the reason they have chosen you and others to restore heart to is only for their minds to know and we to take to ours.”

“Then I shall praise apparent curse for blessing,” he answers, stoically. “Never has a blessed curse been more welcome.”

He wears the long, tattered coat that saw Agron through many days and nights in the temple. It has been cut and sewn to match Nasir’s size and provide him with warmth. A comfort, she knows, that must have kept him warm many a night during the weeks split on separate paths. Naevia rests a hand on his shrouded elbow. “What has happened?”

Then there is devastation in Nasir’s eyes. So painful and raw, it can only be for Agron, and then Naevia knows that the blessing of his return will not be as fortuitous as it would seem.

He takes her hand between his. Despite his small stature, his hands and feet look as though they belong to a body of Agron’s proportions or larger. Their disproportionate size provided many laughs between Mira and her on slow evenings like this on the temple steps, where realizing they were teasing in nature, Nasir did not hold them bitterly to heart.

So large and hot, they touch her, rougher than their first meeting but much softer than the coarse nature of Crixus’s touch. Secure they are as they bring her closer. Nasir brings their hands up between them.  “His hands bear awful wounds brought on by nail and cross.”

Naevia searches his gaze and swallows hard as he remains unmoved and thinks of what such injuries will mean to fighter such as Agron.  In eyes that have lost their verdant shade of feverish grief, she sees acknowledgment of the truth.

It is a great dishonor that Romans have paid upon Agron, one that can only be answered rightfully with blood. “Because they could not defeat him in fair contest, they resort to grievous wounds and an attempt to dishonor.”

Nasir blinks hard, his dark eyes shine and well but do not spill over. “Grievous injury or no, Agron will fight. He will fight for the memory of dearest brother, whose name he speaks of with few but sacred words. He will fight for brothers lost. He will fight for Spartacus... He will fight for Crixus.” For fighting is all that he knows, he does not say.

She pats his cheek, her fingers sweeping gently over the jagged scare that cuts across his eye and down his cheek as hers cuts across her cheek below her eye. Even in injury, they hold close relation. “His fight, his fire… _yet burns_ , because you live.” Like Crixus for her. “Agron is not a man as simple as some would claim. He and Crixus always fell to quarrel because, at heart, they were stubborn like mountains—” They laugh, remembering days of squabbles and fights in the dirt. “Yet so full of love that fighting is all he strives for to keep it.”

It is sadness that marshals Nasir’s face, quickly tempering the happy grin, and Naevia observes again as he slowly slips into that well of guilt and fear that had driven him to strike at Castus. “Agron will not see wounds bar him from fighting nor wounded pride, but,” he says after a quiet measure, “they will.”

If it is to be so, then it is a fate to be embraced and prepared for. “Then you give him the means to seek his justice. As Crixus taught me the blade and Agron, you the spear. His greatest strength, as with all men, is not in his apparent form but in those that stand closest to him willing to give heart and blood for him.”  

 Nasir nods once as he absorbs her words, taking them to heart, and repurposes them for a new cause. She can almost see the idea form, though she does not know the shape of his solution to Agron’s distress.

“I told him my place…is forever by his side.”

She cradles his hands now, supporting the pair of clasped palms. “As he indeed knows.”

“Yes,” Nasir agrees in a small voice, saturated with guilt. “And I will show him and give him means to stand against any who would see him fall again.” It is a selfless thought.

She knows the power of selflessness.  Crixus is just that, kneeling in the dirt, silently watching her, blood smeared across his mouth and belly but silent as a grave, focused solely on her and despite her cries, he is her strength until the end. Her strength deserts her then and she feels that she fails to be what he needs before he is taken away. It is chastisement she carries now, like she does his head, a large weightless burden, constantly demanding that she have been stronger.

The moment he is gone from her, her heart stops, even now it trembles with the threat to seize and still and she would spare her friend—her brother—from such pain as hers.

“Then see it done,” she commands, a shadow of Crixus in her voice.

His arms envelop her in a crushing embrace. He slips under her blanket without bringing in the cool air and holds her. It is a pleasing comfort but short of what she really wants.

Slowly, Naevia draws back, knowing that later hours will be approaching along with Agron’s need for Nasir. “Do not let me rob you of newly returned time.”

“ _Naevia_ ,” Nasir sighs, admonishingly.

She offers him a small smile, as it is all she can afford to give. “No, I would see you tomorrow painted in the warmth of the sun and love returned.”

“And I would see you to dreams of better days, if only for the night.” He hopes for her.

Naevia squeezes his hands once more. “But not this night,” she shakes her head, refusing to leave her fire and the visions she sees there. “So, go now to Agron’s arms and share the peace that is wasted on weary such as me.” She stops him from disagreeing with a firmer look and a single resolute turn of her head to dismiss him. “Take what is owed to you and revel in it before it _\--” Is stolen. Taken. Destroyed. Ruined_. “—slips through grasp.” She finally says.

“Gratitude, Naevia.”

“May sleep find you well.”

“As I hope it does for you, my dearest friend.”

Then Nasir rises slowly to his feet with spear in hand and releases her hand, after a final touch, and sets his course for his tent and Agron’s arms. She watches him walk until he is swallowed by the dark.

Naevia knows fury and fear more intimately than hope, but it, too, is an acquaintance of late. Her hope springs from knowing that she will fight for his vengeance, for the memories of a life that she will never know with Crixus by her side, for the babes with rich earth colored eyes and her dusky skin and hair that rides wild on the wind that she will never cradle to her breast, and for the hearts she will save from being crushed within a still breathing chest.

She will fight with his sword, the hilt tightly grasped in hand until her blood flows just as freely as her enemies, because Crixus taught her how to cleave and cut and wound and mar with strident words and delicate hands. They fight for freedom, for fleeting moments, and lingering touches, which are all theirs by right. It is what they will fight to keep.

She sits beside the raging fire, watching the flames consume the clunks of wood and flare into shadows of waking ghosts. It is a small fire, just a spark compared to the pyre lit to illuminate Crixus’s path to the afterlife.

She sees him in the flames. The peaceful look forever seared to memory like a brand to flesh. It is a touch Naevia will know again.


End file.
